Hating Toronto deemed juvenile, imaginary!

[Re: “Not living in Toronto,” Angel, June 25] Please give the “Toronto sucks” thing a rest; this “city war” is both juvenile and imaginary.

Do people really honestly think that Bostonians exclaim, “New York sucks!!!” or that Parisians are the object of Niçois ridicule?

In the end, the two cities are very different—so much so, as to be incomparable, quelle surprise!—and each has its own attributes of which its citizens are equally proud. 

May the hatchet finally be buried.

>>A. Cox

Don’t sweat the
polluted stuff

[Re: “Coughing at Contrecoeur,” News, June 18] As a prospective homebuyer I found your article on this new East-End development, and its presumed health risks, interesting but naive.

In this day and age you’d be hard-pressed to find buyers who are so blissfully unaware of the potential health risks involved in living so close to such a huge industrial complex, especially if the smell is “a source of nuisance for some,” as the article states. What your article failed to point out is that people have been living down wind of these oil refineries and chemical plants for years—and with few adverse effects.

Anjou is one area that immediately comes to mind. Its existed in the shadow of the refineries for years and for many of the workers at the refinery it was the only place they could find affordable housing. If these industries were really so harmful, surely we would have had thousands of health cases before now.

As for the comment that, “purchasing a property in the East-End of Montreal increases your chances of being exposed to polluted air,” well so does living in Ville St-Laurent, Parc Ex., NDG or any other area of the city that has backyard access to the 20 or the 40.

We’ve been living in polluted environments for our entire lives. And none of what these smokestacks are spewing is new for our bodies. We’ve adapted to our surroundings, as filthy and polluted as they might be.

Personally, I’d rather live down wind of a known pollutant in a quiet residential area in a home I can actually afford than have a mortgage over my head for the next 50 years so I put up with noisy neighbours, smog and summertime road construction.

>>Jennifer Dunn

Canwest,
Zionism and Elvis

[Re: “Discourse, bias and diatribe,” Letters, June 25] Incredibly, Ken Frankel continues to pronounce as bias-free the Canwest media empire even though it financially promoted an evangelical wackjob who denies Islam’s historical connection to Jerusalem. It apparently doesn’t occur to Frankel that claiming Canwest is unbiased in its Mid-East coverage is as absurd as insisting that a Zundel-funding Muslim media could be objective about Jews. But I suppose like all fundamentalists, Israel-worshippers routinely sacrifice elementary logic on the altar of their Zionist creed.

To swindle credibility for their nationalist ideology, Israel’s supporters have always attempted to conflate Judaism with Zionism. Predictably, Frankel accuses anti-Zionist Neturai Karta members of supporting the “destruction of Jews” because they met with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Does he actually believe the Vatican was genocidal in its intent when it hosted Arafat in 1982? And if Ahmadinejad really wanted to “destroy Jews,” would he not have already started with the 25,000 Jewish-Iranians in his own backyard?)

Zionism is a political movement while Judaism is a religion, but poor Frankel seems blissfully unaware that—with the exception of Christian fundamentalists—the entire world has long dismissed as discredited this Zionism-equals-Judaism charade.

Now, Frankel is free to worship Israel, Apollo or Elvis—but he borders on the delusional if he actually expects us to indulge in his Mid-East fantasies.

>>Patrice Bombardier

Diatribe seconded

Who is this woman? Does Shirley Groves even exist or is she a composite of all the Israeli-haters who work for the Mirror? And I second Ron Harris’ motion: this issue has no place in your damn newspaper.

Unless, of course, you have an agenda, which seems to be the case. I wouldn’t wipe a dog’s ass with the trash that you publish in your rag. And fuck Shirley Groves, whoever the fuck you are. Go live in Gaza if you love the pals so much.

>>Fed Up

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